This invention relates to a rapid response health care communication system. More particularly, this invention relates to a rapid and reliable communication system for promptly and reliably providing health care within or outside of a health care facility, especially adapted for operation by a trained health care coordinator. Still more particularly, the subject matter of this invention relates to a communication network for indicating the identity and the location of particular types of health care personnel at various sites in the facility and means for communicating with such personnel at a location to direct their presence to another location in coordination with a patient communication system within the facility. Still more particularly, the invention relates to a system of the type described further including an outpatient communication system, preferably including automatic dialing telephones for providing monitoring and coordinating of emergency health care to patients at home after discharge from the facility.
In general, it has long been a problem in the art to establish communication systems for locating personnel in a large facility, the most common of which is probably a conventional paging system. In a health care facility, however, the communication problem is particularly acute for many reasons. Because of the need for rapid response to a patient's needs in a health care facility and the inherent mobility to health care personnel throughout the facility, a number of communication systems and networks have been established for indicating manually, electrically, or computationally the location of various personnel in the health care facility. By way of a typical example, a patient in need of service often is called upon to depress a call button which provides a signal of a central location, such as a nursing station. When a nurse responds to that signal, she may be called upon to make an informed judgment on the type of response required to accommodate the patient's needs. Where health care judgments are required, the situation may require the nurse to locate an intern or a doctor, all of which result in potentially intolerable delays in providing a response to the needs of the patient.
It is thus an aim of this invention to provide a communication system which can coordinate, at a central location, both the needs of the patient for health care services and the location and identification of health care personnel within the facility who might be available to provide a response to the patient's need.
In the prior art, various hard-wired and remote contact communication systems have been provided for identifying the location of personnel and communicating with such personnel from a central source. However, in the main, such systems which have been established for identifying the location of health care personnel have not been utilized in combination with a system for communicating with the personnel at the identified location and directing their presence in a coordinated fashion to a patient in need of health care services from a central facility.
Moreover, it is a continuing problem to make available health care from a facility to patients who have been discharged from the facility but who are in continuing need of monitoring or supervision during their continuing convalescence. Still further, it is desirable to provide a convenient mode for communicating with the facility to encourage the outpatient to reach the facility when desirable. Thus, it is an additional problem in providing a rapid response health care system to provide a mechanism which is capable of rapid and efficient communication with the facility by a patient outside of the facility in order that an informed judgment on the degree of health care which might be necessary to respond adequately to the patient's needs is available.
Accordingly, it is a general object of this invention to provide a rapid response health care system which provides, in combination, a solution to all of the foregoing problems.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide a health care communication system which features a communication network capable of identifying the location of health care personnel and directing their presence from a central location to a location of greater need.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide a communication network which is capable of rapidly receiving a request for health care from a patient on the basis of voice, telephone, visual, or emergency signaling and to direct, in a coordinated manner, the appropriate health care personnel from an identified location to the location of the patient.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide a rapid response health care system which provides means for utilizing the services of a trained health care coordinator at a central location for receiving information from either within the facility or outside of the facility from a patient and directing a medical response that is appropriate under the circumstances.
It is a further overall object of this invention to provide means for the health care coordinator at the central location which include a console having means for promptly retrieving the patient's medical profile from an information storage device in order to assess the medical response required.
It is an additional feature of this invention to provide a system of the type described in which parallel communication functions are provided from a patient's room to a nursing station on an individual floor in the facility, as well as to the central location.
It is another object of this invention to provide a central console particularly adapted for use by a trained health care coordinator which console includes hospital personnel locator panels, for each floor of the facility, a personnel locator switch board, a patient communication panel, means for storing and retrieving a patient's medical profile, and means for receiving communications from outpatients.
These and other objects will become apparent from a detailed review of the written description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.